I'm sure the smaller companies with have common members of their respective board of directors, and common shareholders as well, so virtually not much changes.

There's probably less risk by dividing up the companies. If one company has a screw up, it's sister company can skate by unscathed. It will be more and more difficult for oil companies to find resources; as they take more and more chances, there's more opportunities for public blunders.

I stopped going to movie theaters in favor of my giant TV+ DVDs, Blu Rays, NetFlix, YouTube, PS3, etc. I have my fridge full of snacks, and can pause movies at any time, and visit my clean bathroom at any time. The best part is I don't have surly teens kicking the back of my chair, talking on their phones, throwing candy, talking during the movie, etc...

If me, and people like me, abandoning theaters means no more R-rated CG overblown blockbusters, so be it. Intriguing films can be made for relatively low budgets.

If you want Heavy Metal part II, turn on your Mathmos lamp, put on some metal music, and scroll though some pr0n on Tumblr.

One way to look at this is humanity is moving towards more of a hive mind type of intelligence. Rather than having to store vast amounts of information in our brains, we spread that information out across our population. Saves time. Intelligence becomes more about knowing how to ask a question or locate who has the information, rather than wasting time hoarding trivia. The danger is that once one mind is infected, the bad information spreads, and the hive collapses.

Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Wednesday January 19, 2011 @01:51PM
from the summon-danny-boyle dept.

eldavojohn writes "A new reactor developed by CalTech shows promise for producing renewable fuel from sunlight. The reactor hinges on a metal oxide named Ceria that has very interesting properties at very high temperatures. It exhales oxygen at very high temperatures and inhales oxygen at very low temperatures. From the article, 'Specifically, the inhaled oxygen is stripped off of carbon dioxide (CO2) and/or water (H2O) gas molecules that are pumped into the reactor, producing carbon monoxide (CO) and/or hydrogen gas (H2). H2 can be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells; CO, combined with H2, can be used to create synthetic gas, or "syngas," which is the precursor to liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Adding other catalysts to the gas mixture, meanwhile, produces methane. And once the ceria is oxygenated to full capacity, it can be heated back up again, and the cycle can begin anew.' The only other piece of the puzzle is a large sunlight concentrator to raise the temperature to the necessary 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The team is working on modifying and refining the reactor to require a lower temperature to achieve the two-step thermochemical cycle. Another issue is the heat loss which the team claims could be reduced to improve efficiency to 15% or higher. Since CO2 is an input, the possibility exists for coal and power plants to collect CO2 emissions to be used in this process which would effectively allow us to "use the carbon twice." Another idea listed is that a "zero CO2 emissions" is developed along these lines: 'H2O and CO2 would be converted to methane, would fuel electricity-producing power plants that generate more CO2 and H2O, to keep the process going.' The team's work was published last month in Science."

Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday December 02, 2010 @12:30PM
from the slippery-tinsel dept.

A Japanese aquarium is using the greenest energy possible to power the lights on its Christmas tree, an electric eel. From the article: "Each time the eel moves, two aluminum panels gather enough electricity to light up the 2-meter (6 ft 6 in) tall tree, decked out in white, in glowing intermittent flashes."